fifteen there's still time for you
by ChocoholicMonkeyfish
Summary: He's always been fixated on age. Ever since the beginning. Too old. Too young. Will a day ever come when he can finally let that all go? A short character study of Josh Matthews and his obsession with age. Minor Joshaya x


_Just a short Josh-centric story. I hope you enjoy._

* * *

Age is a funny thing. People never really seem to want to live in the present, to be the age they are right now. The young want to be older and the old want to be younger.

No one knows this better than Joshua Matthews. When the sibling closest in age to you is still eleven years older, you tend to spend a lot of your time wishing you were more grown up.

At home he felt like he always needed to catch up. His older brother was having a kid and graduating college at the same time that Josh was finally mastering the tricycle. He wanted to be just like Cory, so he worked hard to learn things he'd thought would impress him. But all of that catching up put him ahead of his peers developmentally and he was put in school a year earlier than normal as a result.

* * *

It feels like a curse sometimes; always being younger than everyone else. His sister understands, she's a lot younger than their brothers too, but she leaves for college when he's seven and he's left on his own.

As he gets older his fixation with age grows. He hears the conversations people have about the Matthews: his mom and dad are _too old_ to do the same things other parents do with their kids. His brother and sister-in-law are _too young_ to be starting a family.

He hates that these PTA moms think they can pass judgement on his family, but a small part of him knows there is some truth to the things they say.

The other kids never tease him for not being able to do some of the things they can. He can't go see the PG-13 movies in seventh grade and he doesn't get his license until his junior year, but he's got a quick wit and an easy charm that draws people to him and helps him fit in almost anywhere.

It's a gift from God, he's sure, when he becomes friends with Andrew who is two years older and a grade ahead of him. The older boy takes him under his wing when he enters middle school and it makes navigating that new world that much easier.

* * *

"Ok let us out here and then park the car down the street," his dad tells him as they pull up outside his brother's New York apartment.

It's Christmas and it's the first one they'll be spending in the city. His mom has been complaining about Topanga's cooking the entire way up from Philly, and Josh is more than happy to let his parents go inside without him if it means avoiding that confrontation.

He cherishes the few moments he has alone as he carefully parallel parks his dad's car in a space he finds down the block. It's still two months before he can take his driver's test even though he feels more than ready and his patience is starting to grow thin. He takes in his surroundings as he backtracks towards Cory's building and he can't help but smile. With any luck this will be his neighborhood in another year and a half, sooner even if his application to the NYU high school summer program gets accepted.

He tosses his dad the keys and greets his brother and nephew as he walks further into the apartment. His niece approaches him and he can't believe how tall she's getting, even without her ridiculous heels. The next thing he knows he's got an armful of Maya Hart and he doesn't really know what to do with himself. She's taller too, although still a lot shorter than him, and she looks a lot different than the last time he saw her. Her golden hair is brighter and her smile even more dangerous than he remembers, but it's her eyes that he notices most. They're still endlessly blue and there is something about them now that draws you in and makes you not want to look away. He manages though.

He likes Maya, it's impossible not to like Maya Hart, but he can't figure out why he suddenly feels nervous around her.

It's not until later that night when he's laying on Auggie's floor that he realizes he's finally too old for something.

* * *

He looks at her differently after that first college party. He's spent the better part of a year thinking that she was too young and that her crush on him would have to fizzle out eventually, but he knows now that he was wrong.

They are more similar than he'd ever bothered to realize. He first noticed it back at the beginning of the summer when he ran into her on the subway and she pointed out how he'd just been shot down in the same way that he'd been turning her away since Christmas.

They both were misplaced and just trying to find where they fit. He didn't know the full story, but he'd learned that she was older than the rest of her class. His niece, who'd apparently become more accepting of her best friend's feelings, had impishly informed him that the age difference was actually closer to two years.

Still, while Maya couldn't care less what their ages were he can't stop caring.

* * *

He's sitting on a school bus for the first time in a few years and no matter how happy he is with how the weekend played out, he can't shake the feeling of how amiss he feels.

It really wasn't that long ago that he was in the same place as these kids, but here he is chaperoning them like a real adult when he's not even eighteen yet. How did Topanga swing that anyway?

He glances over his shoulder to check that Yogi and Darby are behaving themselves, and finds himself caught up in a pair of hypnotizing blue eyes. He turns to face the front of the bus, feeling flustered and more like the high schooler he no longer is than the adult he's pretending to be.

Josh hopes that there will come a time when he isn't so preoccupied with his age. Someday.

* * *

 _Thanks for reading._


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